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I’m challenging you to enlarge the way you pray for yourself, using some biblical prayers as guidelines, and I want to follow up on the power of claiming God’s promises to you in prayer. For example, think about this passage from 2 Peter 1:3-4:
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
I want to urge you to start praying this passage into your life, something like this:
God, I know you have given me divine power through your Spirit to live a godly life. I know this comes through my knowledge of Jesus and his Word. I pray that you will help me to pursue this knowledge and I claim your promise that I can participate in the divine nature of Jesus—I can be more and more like Jesus and less and less corrupted by my evil desires.
What if God answered that prayer? Would it make a difference in you that would be eternally important? The obvious answer is yes, of course. And here’s the thing—when you sincerely pray this kind of spiritual prayer for yourself or for others, and you consistently claim the promises that are yours in Scripture, you will be transformed into the likeness of Jesus because you can be assured that God will answer that kind of prayer.
I want to encourage you to pray God’s promises into your life. I remember a song I sang as a kid that said, “Every promise in the book is mine, every chapter, every verse, every line.” It’s a good reminder that God’s word is full of promises that you can and should claim as your own. How often do you do that? Are you missing some blessings because you’re not praying those great and precious promises?
For example, last week I talked about the promise in James 1:5, that if we ask for wisdom, God gives it to us generously. Have you been praying for wisdom? Remember, God’s wisdom keeps you from making poor choices and bad decisions—and just think what a difference that could make.
In Philippians 4:6 and 7 we read:
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
This is a promise with a condition. Presenting your requests to God with thanksgiving—that’s the condition. Here’s the promise: the peace of God will guard your heart and mind. You’re promised peace. Have you been peaceful lately or more stressed-out, discouraged, despondent, unhappy? Maybe that’s because you haven’t presented your requests to God and claimed the peace that transcends all understanding.
Here’s an incredible promise from Isaiah 58:11:
The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.
Have you ever prayed this scripture into your life? When you don’t know what to do, claim this promise that the Lord will guide you. When you’re in a desert-like situation, and everything seems dry and lifeless and you lack energy or motivation, claim this promise that the Lord will satisfy you even in a dry place and he will strengthen you—physically and spiritually. He promises to turn that hard, dry place into a garden whose waters never fail—to give you hope and joy even in a tough place. It’s a promise there for you, so take advantage of God’s goodness.
There are many more promises for you and biblical prayers that you can pray for yourself and others. These are prayers that we know are in God’s will, and therefore we can claim the promise from 1 John 5:14: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”
I want to help you establish a more meaningful prayer life, one where you pray for things that are eternally important. So, on our website, you’ll find a list of many other Bible passages—prayers and promises—that you can pray for yourself and others. I invite you to go to our click here and download those for yourself, put them in your Bible or somewhere convenient and use them to enlarge your prayer life by praying more biblically.
If you will seriously examine the content of your prayer life and just take it to the next level, praying about and for things that are eternally important, you will see wonderful answers that will be turning points in your life and the lives of others.
Now, there’s one other prayer I want to talk about, and that is how you pray for your company or organization, your coworkers, and your management. First, do you pray for them? Remember that you are there as an ambassador for Christ, so it’s important that you pray for the company, the people, and the environment. I remember when my good friends, Fran and Dick, prayed for the company Dick worked for. It was—and is—a large well-known company, and they could see decisions being made that weren’t good for the company or the people. They recognized there were some people in management that shouldn’t be there. They knew that Dick rubbed shoulders every day with people who didn’t know Jesus. So, as a couple they prayed specifically for that company and those people.
As a result, they saw how some people in the wrong job were suddenly moved out of that job. They saw changes in policy for the better. And God opened doors of witness while Dick worked there. That’s because Dick saw his job as his place of ministry. If you share that vision about your job, then you certainly want to pray for the people, the management, and the decisions that are made there. It certainly is better than griping and complaining about things!
I remember when I first became aware of the responsibility I had to pray rightly for my company and coworkers. I was working for a difficult manager at the time, and my prayers to that point had been all about God delivering me from this job and this manager and giving me a nice new job that I would like. But after a year of that prayer which proved futile—nothing was happening—I recognized it was the wrong prayer. So, I began asking God to teach me what he wanted me to learn in this difficult job. And I asked God to help me see my boss through his eyes.
Honestly, that was a turning point in my life, as I overnight had a new attitude toward the job and my boss. I saw how sad his life was because he didn’t know Jesus. I saw beyond his behavior to his need, and that changed the way I prayed for him and the way I related to him. And it gave me an opportunity to be a good representative of Jesus to him and finally when I did leave, I did so with a good testimony and in victory, not defeat.
Do you see the difference it makes when you pray prayers that matter for eternity, not just for relief from some difficult situation or an easier and more convenient life here on earth? Of course we should pray about everything in our lives, big and small, but it’s important not to be so focused on our own needs and wants that we miss the power of praying for things that matter eternally.
As I close these thoughts on prayer, let me ask if you really believe that God answers prayers? We all could recite any number of prayers we’ve prayed that have not been answered. So, why does God answer some and not others? I’m confident we’ve all struggled with that question.
It may be that your unanswered prayers are one of God’s greatest blessings for you. I’m sure you can think of prayers that you earnestly prayed and wanted, and now you see what a blessing it was that God didn’t answer your prayer.
Years ago before I began this ministry, I thought that God wanted me to go into church music of some kind because, after all, I had a degree in music and I had directed my church choir for a few years. So, I prayed earnestly for God to open that door. I put my house on the market to get ready to go back to school for more training. I studied to be ready to pass the entrance exam to a good music school. God didn’t answer that prayer and I’m so thankful he didn’t because he had a different path for me, one that I love even better than music!
Other reasons God may not answer your prayers are:
- God is waiting for you to be obedient.
- It isn’t the right time.
- You aren’t asking in faith.
- God has something better for you than what you are asking for.
Also, it is during the unanswered prayers of our lives that we learn what it means to trust God—or at least it should be that way. My pastor often said, “Only desperate people pray,” and isn’t it often true that when we get to a desperate stage in our lives, we pray more than any other time? The spiritual growth that comes in the waiting stages of our lives—waiting for God to answer our prayers—is usually greater than any other stage of life. We’re desperate; we pray; we listen; God hears and guides and we learn that he is a trustworthy God, even when our prayers aren’t answered the way we think they should be or in our time frame.
What if all your prayers were answered? Would it make a difference for eternity? Let’s be intentional about praying with an eternal perspective, and watch what happens as God answers those prayers.